Downside up Promises
by Blueberry Absinth
Summary: Shinji knew a pixie. A small, idiotic pixie with a really mean right sandal but stilll a pixie... Shiyori, AU


**'tis was a birthday present for the most amazing cheesyfreezy out there~~ Although it was months ago, I just decided to upload it here~ ^^ **

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><p>Shinji knew a pixie. A small, idiotic pixie with a really mean right sandal but stilll a pixie.<p>

Her name was Hiyori.

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He can easily pinpoint their first meeting.

He had been a child.

As cliché dictates, he had been playing in the garden of the back of his grandma's house, when he had suddenly hurled his wooden sword up in the air and then promptly lost sight of it while it was descending.

Not wanting to part with his most favourite toy (the one with which he'd conquer the whole kingdom and kill all the bad guys), he had ran to the bushes, where he'd last seen it fall, and started rummaging through the thick leaves. His hands had been too small and soft and he'd scratched and hurt them but he continued on, regardless.

And just as he was looking for his precious, his hands had been stabbed by a very little blade.

Of course he'd retreated his hands; and once he did so, a small vile-looking creature had flown out of the bush.

Later on, he'd deny that his eyes had almost popped out of his skull.

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After a lot of bickering and him thinking he was dreaming and her getting annoyed, she finally got to tell him her name.

Hiyori.

So very soon, they became game buddies. They'd play whatever came to their minds and would always get in an argument over who won.

She was loud, brash, obnoxious and shrieked too much.

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She brought magic to his life.

Since children are always firm believers in mysteries and sorcery, she didn't need to do much for him to believe. A dash of fairy dust; fluttering along the tops of the trees and he was done. She felt victorious.

But what she didn't know is that she'd given him another kind of magic, one that enabled him to believe the sparkles and the crust on her wings.

Friendship.

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Their games were quite weird. There was the 'catch the fairy' game, one that Shinji loved the most; and 'kick the idiot's ass' was Hiyori's favourite. And 'poke the blonde' was the best one of them all.

From time to time she would make water balloons and together, they'd run around and touch them and then get showered with tiny, tiny drops of rainbow water.

He didn't really play with the other kids. But didn't really care.

He had her and all her amazing-ness and out-of-worldliness.

And they played and played and played in their little upside downside up world.

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Over the course of their friendship, as weird as it was, Shinji'd become detached from his peers. Little by little.

By default, he was a curious fellow, seeing things upside down and downside up. His eyes saw the opposite of the usual way; that had earned him quite a few stares from the children his age. After some time, almost all of the children came to ignore him.

He'd hated that: he was a social butterfly, he had to be surrounded by a crowd and revel in their chatter; and now he was alone.

He locked himself in his room, afraid to go out and face the bad things, the monsters in the faces of others and the disappointments. His mother told him to go out over and over again; but even in her eyes he could see the fear (years later, he understood that it'd been another kind of fear; not the fear of bogeyman and boys who prefer to walk on their hands).

At that time, she had to fly up to his window just to see his face, his angular pretty face, ashen from the time spent locked up, framed by wispy blond hair. She'd knock on the transparent material that prevented her from going by his side, but he wouldn't answer: he'd just sit there on his bed and look at the ceiling.

The first few times she pursed her lips and flew off to mope in the bushes.

The next times she bit her lips and left him a dash of fairy dust on the windowsill.

He never saw it.

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In the end, when he got out of his room, he was a different person.

During the time he'd cooped himself up, he'd read a bunch of romance books and from then on decided he had to be the flirt.

If people didn't want to see his real face, then the most logical thing was to show them whatever they wanted him to be.

That was easy to do: he had a natural charm and an easy-going attitude that made any female giggle. His smile was big and hearty; his tongue was quite… experienced. He acted like a nice guy in front of the girls and they loved it.

They never saw past the façade of the gentleman.

But it was attention nonetheless.

And little by little he forgot about her (no, not that he forgot her but still, eyes adoring you are also magic, right? Right?).

And the first chance he got, he left that excuse of a hometown.

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Some years passed and he, now grown up and not believing in fairytales and stuff, returned to his old home.

(he didn't miss the old times, no he didn't, no, no, no…)

It's been long ago that he realised that she'd been quite pretty (aside from that bratty attitude)

Because of her pixie heritage, she had wings and elf-like features (and lack of height, but Shinji figured she had that only, so annoyed her to no end).

Wings like lace, a dagger like the thorn of a rose and a glare so potent it set his adrenaline on fire.

He never quite experienced something else like that.

Maybe that's why he returned.

He finds her in the same bush which has miraculously survived to such an old age (he guesses that came with a supernatural being living in it). She is the same short childish annoyance of a pig-tailed girl: she yells at him for leaving her like that, tries to hit him but it no longer works, flutters around his face angrily.

Just like old times.

Not really: he is different now and he knows what he wants to do with her.

Quickly, he takes her in his arms, ignoring her insults and meek attempts to hurt him.

She's kinda grown up, he notices.

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Later on, the town folk would gossip about a weird man whose weirdness was outweighed only by his hair; who wouldn't talk with people at all and instead choose to live on his own in a small hut just before the forest. The children were afraid of him.

To their imaginations, he was the apprentice of a wizard who later turned bad and ran away and became an evil warlock, hell bent on destroying the world. The scars and bruises and wounds were proof of some weird dark rituals.

To the grownups, he was a mental and had to be put in a hospital; of course, various other gossips circling around gave various reasons as to why he'd become like this: from a lost sweetheart to being dropped on his head one too many times while he'd been still a kid.

To Hiyori he was the child who taught her all the games she knew, all songs she could sing and all smiles she had to smile. To her, he was a world.

An upside downside world she hated with all her passion, but still her very own.


End file.
